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After a 16 year break from Coarse Angling I re-ignited my passion for fishing in 2010. Follow my journey from tackle selection, new methods, old and new venue's. All the blanks and bags captured. Thanks for stopping by...

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After a quiet night in downtown Waltham Abbey and a cracking meal at the Turkish restaurant it was back to Lake John for Day 2.

Fishing is one of those sports, yes it is a sport for you none angling readers, where you get to meet famous anglers young and old, socialise and fish with them. Today was one of those days!

I was having breakfast with Andy Kinder, Chris Vandervleit and none other than Dickie Carr who has fished for England in both the regular and veterans team. What a lovely bloke Dickie is and it brought back memories of reading Angling Mail and Times featuring Mr Carr. Great to meet you Dickie!

The Draw
Today's home would be the back bank on Peg 30 with an even longer feeder line to the island.

Set-up
Again the feeder came out, this time the 12 foot rod with a mini pit reel as it was a big chuck.

Pole lines which were all the same depth, so one rig required:14.5 metres and 10 and 2 o'clock5 sections straight ahead
The rig was a heavier 0.8 grams given the days wi…

Carl had organised a two day event at Lake John Fishery in Waltham Abbey on the main, top lake.

Lake John is well know for its great head of skimmers and bream so after a great day at Bury Hill I already had a plan of attack. There are also some very large carp in the Top Lake and should we catch any fish over 10lb they would be counted as 10lb only.

What we didn't expect over the two days would be the amount and size of the carp that would come out!

A great breakfast was quickly dispatched, thanks to the ladies who do a great job. There was a mix of people I knew and some new faces, most of who were regulars at Lake John. Plenty of tips were exchanged and it was time to draw.

The Draw
The little wooden cube with number 34 came out of the bag. I''d been in this area, well, Peg 35 during a mini competition with my mate Mark in 2014.

Set-up
The island had a bare bank to target so the feeder rod was set-up.

A blind pairs MFS match at Bury Hill Fisheries organised by Terry Swan was too good to resist. My partner for the day would be Pat Pritchard who I'd had a cheeky practise session with the previous week, the blog of that day can be found here. I was feeling good for the day ahead.

An early start from London to meet Hathers and Spindle for breakfast in Dorking and then onto the fishery to catch up with all the lads, quite a few who I'd not met before, especially Skimmerman (Kev), who has just qualified to fish in Serbia for the England Disabled Squad.

Kev needs a bit of support to get him there and a JustGiving page has been set up so if you can donate, please do by following this link.

A text message from Pat letting me know that he'd broken down on the M25 was disastrous. The diagnosis for the car was bent valves which sounds a bit terminal. So a random partner from the other bank was picked for me, this turned out to be Spindle!

A upcoming match at Bury Hill Fisheries I decided that a bit of practise was required. After all, my last session here was over a year ago and I didn't do very well at all.

The match will be a pairs event and Pat Pritchard is my partner for the day. A quick call to Pat and he was available to come on down for the day too. Pat's a bit of a good angler having just wining the MFS Champion's league final so any advice from Pat would definitely help come match day.

The Peg
Pat arrived a bit earlier than and headed down to Peg 40 so when I got there I picked Peg 41 with plenty of open water in front of us both.

The lines I intended on fishing would be the feeder line, long and middle distance and a couple of pole lines at 14.5 metres, 10 O'clock and 2 O'clock both fed slightly differently.

Bait for the day. Expander and hard pellets (4mm and 6mm), dead red maggots and sweetcorn including a mix of fishmeal and special G Green groundbait.